


One-in-a-Million Chance is Still a Chance, and I Would Take Those Odds

by realityisiron



Series: Train Wreck [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Season 2 spoilers, season 2 finale spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-07 05:25:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11616807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/realityisiron/pseuds/realityisiron
Summary: But if the Black Lion had sent Shiro away, then surely somewhere in her thoughts and code and starstuff there was an answer. There was a location. There was some place where Pidge could start looking (she was tired of looking – she wanted to find).- - - - -Keith isn't willing to speak to the Black Lion again, but Pidge is.





	One-in-a-Million Chance is Still a Chance, and I Would Take Those Odds

**Author's Note:**

> And here's that part three I promised.
> 
> Believe me, this really was only supposed to be one part. Now apparently it's an exercise in me writing things under 1000 words (you might note in the fanfics I'll be posting besides this one that things tend to go over 1000 words very, very quickly).
> 
> Well that and playing with writing style.
> 
> Anyway, Pidge needs love so I wrote from her perspective.

“No one go near the Black Lion.”

Keith had said.

“She took Shiro away.”

“Took?”

“ _She_ says sent.” The words were spat like ashes from his mouth – ashes of a mighty being now dead to him, burned and smoldering remnants of a bridge Shiro had hoped he’d cross. Keith didn’t plan to cross it anymore.

 

Why would a lion send a paladin away?

 

But if the Black Lion had sent Shiro away, then surely somewhere in her thoughts and code and starstuff there was an answer. There was a location. There was some place where Pidge could start looking (she was tired of looking – she wanted to _find_ ).

Pidge became the second to enter the graveyard – still shaken from when Keith had visited and unearthed _something_.

Pidge just had to know what.

 

Folded in the cockpit, a hand pressed to Black’s input (Shiro’s bayard still there, waiting, everyone too scared of triggering memories of a ghost still too new in their heads if they touched), blanketed with cords and light and the persistent heat of her laptop, Pidge felt a giant presence nudge at her mind, asking gently to show. Pidge had never liked the mind shuffling, the unavoidable and random rifling through her thoughts and memories, but with hesitation she dropped her walls and let the Black Lion in, let her sparkling wildfire magic catch and whirl in her mind. Pidge knew this feeling, had felt this energy before in Green.

And then all hell clawed through her right arm.

Disintegration, spaghettification, simultaneous and at war with one another, trying to cram galaxies into tiny airtight boxes like you could fit life in a pocket to drown but force the worlds to keep on turning anyway. The air was robbed from her as many times as it was forced back in, stretching her lungs and ripping them out all at once.

She pried open her eyes – when had she closed them? – to see someone’s body where her’s should have been; larger, taller, tired, together even as he fell apart, moments he couldn’t forget (but had forgotten anyway) carved into his skin. His whole body throbbed with the weight of them (so many she couldn’t count, couldn’t even guess).

 _This is Shiro_.

Where her right hand had been, pale and unearthly above the purple glow, his was fisted around a bayard, pressed into the input.

A gasp ripped from her chest. Pidge’s laptop slid to the floor, the rage she felt for the lion (“strongest weapon of the universe” had never made so much sense before) pooled at the floor right alongside it, drained.

_Was it… was it always like **that**?_

The images were rapid fire, every time the displays lit beneath Shiro’s touch, his life quicksilver that slipped through too many cracks. How much did he have in him to give to the toxic druid’s pull and Black’s hungry draw? When would his spine fold and snap – quick and clean, like paper?

Black didn’t know. There was no way _to know_ , but it had felt so real – so tangible, the lion felt so few things tangibly – when he’d pressed to her nerves with the bayard. The poison shot to her heart, her instincts striking back (unavoidable, couldn’t help it, didn’t mean to – don’t be angry, please, please, _please_ ). Up, up, up, through an arm of metal venom into such a tiny, shaking heart.

For a terrifying blink in time Pidge’s heart burst, vanished, was painted on the backs of her ribs and the curve of her lungs.

No, no, that was Black. Black was just imagining – just projecting what _could have been_. But no, no, she wouldn’t let it. She couldn’t. There was only one way to make sure he didn’t, only one way to stop him, only one way to give him a chance to live. So, so of course, of course Black had to-

_That’s why you sent him away._

A rumbling thunder enveloped her. Pidge could never forget how easily they were swallowed by the lions. Her mind replayed that magic, the tug-o-war, the pulls too strong for a human heart to take.

But yes. Yes. _Yes._ That had been why.

_If you sent him away, then you know where he is._

Silence.

Black was… nervous. Then another rumble; softer, smaller.

She knew.

_Tell me. Please. I know why you did this, but this isn’t fair to him. He doesn’t deserve this. He’s… he’s been through enough._

Black understood – the foreign feeling of sick, of miserable discomfort twisting in Pidge’s stomach told herself that much.

But she couldn’t tell Pidge. Wouldn’t tell unless-

 _What? **Why?** _ Pidge wanted to snap, to punch something, to-

Black would only tell Pidge under one condition.

 

 

“Shiro was dying.” Was, is. Couldn’t be sure since he was gone, but the Black Lion was certain that his death couldn’t be rushing to meet him so long as he wasn’t piloting her.

Pidge watched the horror dawn in their eyes (dark and lost and wide – from Allura to Hunk to Kolivan, the looks were all the same, even as their bodies twisted and fell and drifted apart in different ways).

How could any of them breathe and not tremble, when they knew that Shiro was dying?

 

Condition met.

 

Whereas Keith hadn’t looked back, Pidge returned to Black’s waiting jaws.

No longer a grave.

Not if she could help it.

“Alright Black. We had a deal. Where did you send him?”

**Author's Note:**

> Dunno if you've noticed, but apparently I've got a part four in mind if that ending is anything to go by.
> 
> Why do I do this to myself?
> 
> Well, maybe one day I'll find the answer. If you wanna be there when it happens (and be there for all the Voltron stuff I reblog and post and get excited about), no worries, I happen to have this handy dandy thing called [tumblr](https://realityisiron.tumblr.com/). I hang out there on occasion... AKA all of the time so long as season 3 spoilers aren't running rampant (I don't get to watch until AUGUST 8!!! IT'S TRAGIC!)


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